The Dark Wind: 'Akóhájí Doogááł
by San Antonio Rose
Summary: Monster Slayer—the Michael Sword—and Thousand Books—Lucifer's Vessel—keep pushing this pesky free will thing. But Lilith and Zachariah have a Plan B... and C... and D... because sometimes fate really is what you make it. (Dinéchesters AU; warning for character deaths)
1. Irresistible Force

A/N: Warning for spoilers through "Swan Song" and character deaths (more or less in line with canon for Seasons 1-5). This was written before 8.12 aired, so there's a reference to a demon that doesn't square with current canon—but hey, it's AU anyway! No character bashing, but you may be all the more inclined to shoot certain villains by the end...

* * *

The Dark Wind: 'Akóhájí Doogááł  
By San Antonio Rose

Chapter 1  
Irresistible Force

Four months. It had taken four months for John to finally get his hands on the Colt. In that time, he had dodged demons while the boys had had close call after near miss with their hunts, and Sam had drifted closer to embracing the old _Diné_ ways, speaking more Navajo and taking more Navajo approaches to life and lore, especially after Luis had emailed that Jess and her new husband had moved away and left no forwarding address. And John had tried every form of persuasion he knew to get Daniel Elkins to cough up the gun. He had almost been ready to just break in and steal the blasted thing when a nest of vampires had turned up in Manning, killed the old man, and made off with the Colt. Taking out the nest also got the Winchesters the tool they needed to end their long fight against _Bináá' łitso_, but no sooner did they settle on a plan to go after the demon in Salvation, Iowa, than Meg, another demon who'd crossed their paths a time or two before, killed Jim and Caleb to try to force John to hand over the gun.

By this time, Sam had had a vision of _Bináá' łitso_'s next target, five-month-old Rose Holt, so John decided to try a bait and switch. Taking another antique Colt, he headed off to meet Meg in Jefferson City while the boys staked out the house where the Holt family lived to catch _Bináá' łitso_ when he turned up to place the blood-spell on the baby. Dean had a horrible feeling about their chances of success, but John parted from them on good terms.

The second the signs of demonic presence became evident at the Holt house, the brothers leapt into action. Once they were inside, Sam thundered up the stairs to little Rose's nursery, keenly aware of what he was doing and just as keenly aware of the way _Bináá łitso_'s nearness was affecting him. He sensed fire surging through his veins, blood calling to blood, the promise of strength, of power, of being-like. It was a blood-spell, a ghost sickness of a kind neither of his peoples had ever known. But Sam recognized it for what it was, hated and rejected it, and knew that there was only one way to free himself.

The second he had a clear shot at _Bináá łitso_'s back, he took it—and the bullet struck home. The cursed spirit fell, burning with the fires of the Burning-Pitch-Place, and Sam gave a wild yell of triumph that brought Dean running. Dean pulled him into a rough hug before making sure Monica and Rose were okay. Then they took care of the corpse, and Dean called John to report.

It should have been over.

It wasn't.

Meg eventually answered John's phone for him. John was dead, she swore—an eye for an eye, father for father. And she still wanted the Colt. Dean told her precisely what she could do with herself before hanging up and collapsing back against the car.

"_Haidzaa?_" Sam asked.

"She said—" Dean broke off with a curse. "I don't believe it. I _won't_ believe it. Demons _lie_. C'mon, let's get out of here."

The brothers beat a hasty retreat to Bobby's house, and Bobby pulled out all the stops to try to find John. He hadn't succeeded before Meg showed up at his house, taunting the boys and demanding the Colt. But they were ready for her. The trap they'd painted on the ceiling held her fast, and Dean interrogated her while Sam slowly read the Latin exorcism rite. And when she refused to give up the answers they needed, changing her story several times and wavering on whether or not John was actually dead, Sam finished the exorcism and sent her back to Hell.

Meg Masters, the human host, fell out of the chair with a gasp as old wounds surfaced. "I'm sorry," she groaned as the boys ran to her while Bobby called for an ambulance. "I tried... tried to stop her... to take back control..."

"Hey, shh, take it easy," Sam replied, propping her up while Dean offered her some water.

"She lied. He's dead. Saw her... snap his neck. Then... I think... another t-took him."

Dean swallowed hard a couple of times. "Where is he?"

"Jeff City. I think. I don't... he could have left already. Or could be a trap. By the river... Sunrise..."

Sam sighed. "Okay. Thanks. Just hold tight; we're gonna get you some help."

"Guys... thank you. You don't know... the things she did... 's been a year of hell."

"Shh. Hang on."

But suddenly she slumped against him more heavily and breathed her last.

Somehow the brothers managed to respond to Bobby's prompting to get down the road before the paramedics could arrive, giving him their thanks and farewells and a promise to be in touch as soon as the coast was clear. Somehow Sam managed to inform Dean once he found that Meg's dying clue referred to Sunrise Apartments. But beyond that, they didn't say a word to each other or to anyone else—not on the way to Jefferson City, not on the way into the apartment building, not to the thing wearing their father's skin when it demanded the Colt and Dean let him taste a bullet from it. Sam didn't have to speak to let Dean know he felt the broken vertebrae in John's neck when they collected his body. And Dean didn't have to speak to tell Sam that, however much he hated the idea, they had to give John a hunter's funeral and not a _Diné_ one. They _had_ to burn him; they couldn't give him a quick burial according to tradition and risk something stealing him again.

They went back to Bobby's for a few days once the deed was done. But they both knew they had to go back to Arizona, to let the rest of the family know what had happened. So go they did, but still Dean spoke as little as he could.

Grandmother, Grandfather, and Amá Sání met them as they got out of the car, but there were no jokes or quick hugs this time. They seemed to have recognized from the looks on the brothers' faces that something was wrong.

"Boys?" Grandmother asked quietly. "Did you find John?"

Dean sighed and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, we found him. And then we lost him."

Grandmother sighed heavily as the color drained from Grandfather's face. They all exchanged hugs.

And no one spoke of John again.

* * *

Ansem stomped into the bar in Guthrie and ordered a beer. He couldn't believe his carefully constructed plan to get his brother back had fallen apart so spectacularly. Not only had his mind control power apparently stopped working all of a sudden, Andy had just as suddenly decided to check himself into rehab. And everybody kept reacting to Ansem like he was _rude_.

He was halfway through his beer when a cute, curly-haired brunette walked in and sat down next to him. He checked her out while she was ordering, and she returned the favor with a hint of a smirk once she was done.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Does it matter?" she shot back.

He grinned. "Hey, listen... you and me, we're gonna go for a ride later, okay?"

She laughed. "Doesn't work on me, cutie pie. But listen," she added, leaning closer, "you want a good time, I can show you a real good time. Better than you thought you wanted."

"Oh?"

"You've seen the man with yellow eyes?"

He swallowed hard. "How did you know?"

"He's my father. He made you some promises, didn't he?"

"Yeah. But something happened."

She nodded. "Plan's changed a little. But we need you, Ansem. You come with me, let me show you a few tricks, and I'll make it... _very_ worth your while."

A deep, burning hunger kindled in his gut. "Okay. It's a deal."

Her drink arrived, and she smiled. "Finish your drink while I have mine. Then we can get out of here."

"You sure it's safe?"

She chuckled. "I've got an angel in my corner."

"So what _is _your name?"

"Meg."

He raised his beer. "To us, Meg."

She raised her drink. "To us."

They drank and left the bar together, and he drove her to the overlook where he liked to take his dates. Once they were stopped, she kissed him, and he kissed back, then nipped at her lip—or at least, he'd thought it was just a nip, but the skin broke and a few drops of blood sprayed into his mouth.

And power surged through his veins like living fire.

He sat back, gasping. "Wh-what..."

Meg's eyes turned solid black, but her smile was no less inviting. "That's the secret, baby boy. I've got what you need. What you've always wanted. You do what I ask, and I'll give you the keys to it all. The world is yours, Ansem." And she kissed him again.

"Yes," he breathed. "Yes... I'll do it... please..."

"Baby steps, kid. Baby steps. You gotta learn how to take it, how to use it. And in the meantime..." She kissed him again and slid onto his lap.

He'd never been happier in his life.

* * *

Sam and Dean kind of drifted from hunt to hunt for the next few months. Sam's heart was more into it than Dean's was, at least until the run-in with the town infected with the zombifying Croatoan virus. That was the first clue they'd gotten that some other demon was picking up where _Bináá' łitso_ had left off. But the trail was cold and circuitous, and neither the Trickster they ran into in Ohio nor the ghost who wanted to be an avenging angel helped any. And then there was the crazy _Zhini_ hunter who thought Sam was the Antichrist. The brothers made their annual trips to Arizona for the holidays just for the sake of their own sanity, but the grief over Dad's loss threatened to overwhelm even that breathing space, and Sam really needed something to keep him from tracking Jess down and getting her out of her marriage right away, in spite of the dangers, and... running off to Scotland or something, if Dean would ever agree to that.

He couldn't _leave_ Dean. Not like this. Dean would self-destruct. But Sam needed something more than that to keep him hunting and not forcing Dean to retire.

So it was kind of nice, come March, to find what looked like a straightforward werewolf case, at least until the werewolf turned out to be an otherwise nice girl who seemed to have a thing for Sam and whom Sam liked platonically in return. After some squabbling, he talked Dean into attempting the cure of killing her sire. That done, the brothers sat with Madison until the sky began to lighten. She made it through that whole time without changing.

Then Dean sighed, shrugged, and stood. "Okay. Guess that's it. I'll go wait in the car, Sam. Madison, nice knowin' ya."

"Bye, Dean," Madison replied.

Smiling, Sam stood and watched Dean walk out the front door. "So," he began as he turned back to Madison, "I guess..." Then he faltered, seeing her smile.

Her very seductive smile.

He swallowed hard and began edging toward the door as she walked toward him. "Guess this is goodbye. I'm, uh, really glad things worked out this way..."

Suddenly she pinned him against the wall and kissed him.

"No... no, Ma—"

She caught him with his mouth open and kissed him harder, with tongue, while pulling at his clothes.

He struggled, trying not to hurt her. "There's someone else!"

"Not after tonight, there won't be." She kissed him again and tried to unbutton his pants.

"Madison, STOP!" he cried, pushing her away with all his might.

She stumbled backward halfway across the room but didn't fall, frowning at him in confusion.

"I'm going to _marry_ her."

Confusion warred with hurt in her eyes for a moment—and then, with a roar, she changed and lunged at him. He barely had time to draw and fire three times to stop her before she could reach him. Dean burst in the door as she fell and regained her human features, confused once more.

Then she seemed to understand. "I'm sorry, Sam," she whispered. "Thank you." And she breathed her last.

Sam burst into tears, and Dean couldn't hold back a few tears of his own.

* * *

As March turned to April and hurried on toward May, Dean found himself growing heartily sick of everything. He was beyond ready for a break in the insanity, a chance to track down the demon that had taken over for _Bináá' łitso_ and put an end to this business once and for all so Sam could spring Jess and they could both retire. So when Ash found a pattern of omens beginning to spring up around a huge devil's trap made of railroad tracks in southern Wyoming, a trap that apparently guarded a gate blocking a hellmouth, Dean jumped on it, calling Bobby and Ellen to meet them there to intercept whoever the demon was planning to use to open the gate, if not the demon itself. The hunters drove as close to the gate as they could, then set out on foot, with Dean carrying the Colt and the others armed with shotguns loaded with salt rounds.

But halfway there, something in the woods caught Dean's attention, and he stopped. He wasn't sure what it was, but he got a bad feeling about it. "Sam?"

"_Tha mi e a' faicinn_," Sam answered.

"Boys?" Bobby prompted. "Cemetery's this way."

"You go ahead," Dean said, raising the Colt. "We'll check this out, make sure nothing's gonna try and sneak up behind us."

Bobby looked worried but replied, "All right. Be careful."

Sam and Dean took off slowly and warily into the woods, trying to see what had caught their eye. Nothing appeared before they came out into a clearing, where they paused. But before either brother could say anything, Dean suddenly heard a sickening crunch and turned to see Sam, his head at an unnatural angle, collapsing to the ground.

"SAM!" Dean cried and lunged to catch his brother.

Something took advantage of his distraction and snatched the Colt out of Dean's hand before vanishing into the darkness. Paralyzed by grief and shock, Dean could only fall to his knees and clutch Sam's body to his chest, keening softly and rocking gently. Even the earthquake that followed shortly thereafter couldn't break through the blockage that had shut Dean's mind down.

He didn't know what to do.

He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there, trying unsuccessfully not to cry, when a brunette sauntered into the clearing. "Well, well, lookee here. Shouldn'ta been so quick to send me Downstairs, Dean."

Dean frowned. "Meg?"

"Ooh, gold star!"

"How the hell..."

"Well, some plans, they're just not so easy to stop. I had a job to do up here. Woulda liked to get little Sammy's help with it, but considering he killed my father, I didn't think he'd be too willing. So I called in one of the other special children, and he... did exactly as I asked."

Dean shivered. "Why?"

"There's a war coming, Dean. We needed a general. And we needed a human who could open the gate to let the army through." She crouched down and wrapped one of Sam's curls around her finger. "Seems he broke a few too many eggs making the omelet, though."

"Leave us alone."

"Aw, Dean, don't be like that. I got what I wanted. And I'm willing to let a few bygones be bygones, if you know what I mean."

He frowned. "Like what?"

"I can bring your precious Sammy back. And all I ask, one year from now, is your soul. No other strings—though if you try to back out, Sam dies." Her eyes turned black. "Whaddaya say, Dean?"

_Take the deal._

Dean wasn't sure where the thought came from, but he wanted to obey. Yet... he didn't want to go to Hell, and knowing what had happened with Mom's deal...

_Take the deal_.

He couldn't. He—he couldn't.

_Take. The. Deal._

He c-couldn...

**_Take. The. Deal._**

"Y-yyyes," forced its way out of him.

Meg grabbed his face and kissed him. Inside he recoiled, but his body wouldn't move. He couldn't pull away.

When she ended the kiss, Meg tweaked Dean's nose. "See you in a year, Dean." And she vanished.

Sam jerked and gasped, but Dean still couldn't move, not even to wipe away the tear that escaped from his eye. Confused and concerned, Sam looked around wildly—then jumped to his feet with a curse and fired twice at something behind Dean that had just started to run away. Dean gasped and fell forward slightly as whatever had frozen him vanished.

"Dean!" Sam dropped to his knees and put a hand on Dean's back.

Dean choked out a curse in Gaelic and pulled Sam around into a hug.

"Dean, what happened? There was a guy standing behind you, like..."

"He Obi-Wan-ed me," Dean replied, though it came out as a sob. "H-he—he k-killed you, and... and Meg..."

"Dammit, Dean—"

"I _tried!_ Sammy, I _tried_ not to take it! He... he must've..."

Sam sighed and studied Dean's face. "How long?"

"A year."

Sam swore quietly. "Okay. Okay, uh, we'll... we'll go back to the rez and get in touch with Chris..."

Dean shook his head, defeated. "It's no good, dude. I have to consent to a _Nidáá_. But if I do anything to get out of the deal, she'll kill you."

"But coerced consent isn't valid!"

"Sam..."

"No, Dean. Don't say it. Don't apologize. Just... there's gotta be a way to get you out of this. And by the gods, I'll find it if it kills me."

Bobby and Ellen ran into the clearing just then, took stock of the situation, and didn't ask any questions. Rather, Bobby said, "Boys. We got the gate closed and got the Colt back, but a hell of a lot of demons came through. We'd better get out of here."

Dean could only nod and let Sam pull him to his feet.

* * *

The deal left both brothers floundering. Dean seemed determined to enjoy the time he had left and pull up what few stakes he still had, even choosing to take the out Lisa Braeden offered him with the obvious lie that her son wasn't Dean's. Sam could tell it was killing him to walk away from Ben, but it did seem less cruel to leave now than to stay and make them face the pain of losing him to the hellhounds.

That much, Sam got. He didn't get Dean's reluctance to help him find some way to break the deal, even considering that the damn thing wouldn't have held up in an American court of law. So although he was wary of the mysterious blonde named Ruby who showed up and professed to want to help, and doubly so once he found out she was a demon, he couldn't very well refuse her aid without proof that she was lying. Any help was better than none, and she did save his life a time or two and help Bobby fix the Colt when the original bullets ran out. Dean didn't trust her, but he hadn't met her yet.

But then, after a dispiriting Christmas hunt that had kept them from getting back to Arizona, their paths crossed Ruby's again on a hunt that turned out to involve witches being manipulated by a demon. Sam stopped Dean from killing Ruby on sight, and she returned the favor by breaking a spell cast on Dean by the other demon in town, Tammi. Sam might have been all the more inclined to trust her after that... had she not shown up at the house where the brothers were trying unsuccessfully to corner Tammi, professing to have lured them there to get back in Tammi's good graces, and had Tammi not let slip that Ruby herself had been not only human but also a witch once upon a time.

As soon as the only other surviving member of the coven tried to kill Tammi, the force holding the brothers to the walls vanished. Dean dropped, came up with Ruby's knife, and ran Tammi through. Sam dropped, too—and came up with the Colt, aimed squarely at Ruby's heart.

Ruby blinked. "What?"

"A witch," Sam snarled. "You're the _chindi_ of a damn _witch?!_"

"Wait, Sam..."

"Give me one good reason not to blow you away right here."

"I can help you! I can help you save Dean!"

"That's not how you were talking earlier," Dean said quietly. "Do it, Sam."

"No, wait, Sam—"

Sam didn't let her finish. He squeezed the trigger, and she fell, burning from the inside. Dean cleaned the knife, and they left without another word.

On the way out of town, though, Dean gave Sam a once-over. "Thought you said you'd find a way if it killed you."

Sam looked over at him. "I'm _not_ going to resort to the Witchery Way, Dean."

Dean reached over and gave the back of Sam's neck a grateful squeeze.

* * *

"This had _better_ be important," Zachariah snapped. "I've already risked my neck far enough in having Uriel retrieve Meg last year."

Lilith's eyes clicked white in annoyance. "I wouldn't have called you otherwise, angel. You _know_ my daddy told me not to talk to strangers."

"All right, then. What?"

"Sam Winchester just killed the demon I sent to corrupt him. He's still faithful to that Jessica girl, and now he's on his guard where false friends are concerned. We won't be able to take advantage of his despair once the first seal breaks."

Zachariah's reply was not fit for a child's ears.

Lilith tilted her head. "Can't _you_ kill Jessica?"

"No, and I'm not going to tell you why. We'll just have to let Sam keep the Colt and find some other way to provoke him." He paced for a moment, thinking, then looked back at her. "How's your relationship with Famine and Pestilence?"

Her answering grin was pure evil.

* * *

Dean was running out of time, and Sam was running out of options. He wasn't quite sorry he'd killed Ruby, but the leads had dried up not long after that. All they knew for sure was that Lilith had taken over Dean's contract from Meg. Ash had come up with a tracking program and had a fatal heart attack while handing the CD to Sam; the program worked, but it couldn't predict when Lilith would move, and she was almost always at least a two-day drive away. And the one time they almost got close enough to trap her... went about as well as one might expect, given their luck. So once the brothers had fridged Doc Benton, Sam had only one card left to play.

He took Dean back to Arizona, to the hogan they'd built two years ago. Dean figured they were safe enough, since his deal still had a few more weeks to go, but Sam decided not to take any chances and warded the place six ways from Sunday. And then at first light the next day, he took the Impala and drove to the outskirts of Flagstaff.

His destination was among the San Francisco Peaks—specifically the one the Navajo call _Dook'o'oosłííd_ or _Diichilí Dzil_, Abalone Shell Mountain. It was the western boundary of Dinétah and the only mountain he knew for sure was supposed to house a god who actually cared about humans.

Sam wasn't sure what kind of creatures or humans might be guarding Abalone Shell Mountain, and Chris had made him stay in the car the last time they'd come out here because he wasn't a singer. So actually trying to hike up the slope was probably a bad idea. What he could do, and did, was to get as close as he could in the car before stripping down to a breechcloth, painting his body appropriately, and gathering his few supplies. Then he hiked to the base of the mountain, set out his offering of cornmeal and tobacco as well as a blanket for himself, and sat down to wait. After a few moments of silence, he decided to try singing, since the Holy People seemed to like music in all the legends he knew. So he sang every song he could think of that reminded him of Dean—Metallica, AC/DC, Led Zep, all the greatest hits. And when he got to the end of the playlist, he started over again.

He sang all. day. long. The sun set; the moon rose; and still he kept going.

He was beginning to worry that his already less-than-stellar voice wasn't going to hold out much longer when he heard a quiet "Wuuhuu..."

Sam froze. That hadn't sounded like any owl he'd ever heard before.

"Wuuhuu..."

Sam gulped. "_Y... Yáát'ééh, Haashch'éélt'i'í, shicheii_."

And suddenly Talking God revealed himself, taking the appearance of a Navajo man wearing a white buckskin outfit trimmed with rainbow ribbon, and he had eagle and owl feathers hanging from his braids. "Sam Winchester," he said with a curious birdlike tilt of the head. "Born to Campbell, born for Salt. Well, born to trouble and born for sorrow, to be more accurate. What were you singing about, my grandson?"

"I was... I was singing about my brother, my grandfather."

"Indeed? And why would you come here to do that?"

"I need your help. My brother's been trapped into a demon deal, and I need some way to get him out of it."

Talking God tilted his head the other way. "Trapped? How do you mean?"

And Sam spilled the whole story, what they knew and what they didn't know. As he talked, Talking God's expression grew less curious and more grave.

Finally, Talking God looked down at the offering Sam had set out, picked it up, and passed it up one side of his body and down the other before tucking it into his squirrel-skin pouch. "I don't have a ready answer for you, Sam. I'll have to consult with the others. But come back with your brother in four nights' time, and I'll tell you what I can."

Sam took a deep breath and let it out again. "Okay. We'll be here. _Ahéhee', shicheii_."

Talking God nodded and vanished.

Shaking and breathless, Sam picked up his blanket and walked back to the car. And he absolutely did not speed on the way back to the ranch... well, okay, maybe a little. It was only an hour or so away by car at the speed limit, anyway.

Dean was still up, poking aimlessly at the fire, when Sam got back. He looked up as Sam walked in and raised an eyebrow. "You gonna bathe or what?"

Sam huffed, not sure if it was a laugh or not. "Later. It worked. Dean, _it worked._ I saw Talking God."

Dean sat up straighter. "And?"

"We're supposed to go back in four nights, both of us. He's gonna see what he can find out."

"... A definite maybe? That's all he could give you?"

"Well, that's a hell of a lot better than we've gotten from anyone else."

Dean sighed and ran a hand over his face. "Yeah, I know, I know. I'm sorry. It's just... we've been on so damn many wild goose chases this year. I was kind of hoping for a yes or no answer."

"We'll get one, dude. I'm sure. Talking God's not one to break his promises."

Dean nodded and looked away. After a moment, though, he looked back at Sam. "You _saw_ Talking God? Seriously?"

Sam nodded.

"What's... what's he look like?"

"Human, like the other gods we've seen, but... nicer, y'know? _Diné_. And he, like, actually listened to me. Kind of weird, though... he said I was 'born to trouble and born for sorrow.'"

"Oh, _that's_ encouraging."

"Dean."

"Dammit, Sammy—you deserve better. You deserve _Jess_ and a degree and a white picket fence and a city house and all the stupid stuff you ever wanted. You shouldn't have to be out here trying to save my neck."

Sam shook his head. "Dean, what makes you think I don't want to?"

Dean looked at him miserably for a moment before tossing his stick into the fire, lying down, and pulling his blanket over himself, ending the conversation. Sam sighed and took a jug of water outside to scrub down.

The four days passed pretty quietly. Sam tried not to fret, and Dean tried not to get his hopes up. But for as many times as Dean said "C'mon, _really?_" about the various ways Sam insisted on preparing for the return to Abalone Shell Mountain, he went through with all of it the day of without a peep of complaint. And he didn't even fidget much once they got to the right spot at the foot of the mountain.

It was nearly midnight when Talking God finally appeared. "Sam," he said with a nod. "This must be Dean."

Dean managed to nod back. "_Yáát'ééh, shicheii_."

Talking God heaved a heavy sigh. "I have spoken to the other gods. We have considered every option. We even got a little unexpected outside help; it seems Loki is very interested in your case. And I wish I had better news for you. But as unjust as it is, Dean, even in the absence of your heart's consent, you said the word and gave the kiss. The deal can't be undone. Lilith won't release you. And we can't protect you forever."

Dean shot to his feet. "What the hell do you mean, you can't protect me forever? You're a _god!_"

"A god whose power is tied to his people, and his people are fading. We're not as weak as the gods of Europe, but we are not all-powerful; only Yahweh is. Even if all of us join forces, we're no match for Lilith."

Dean turned away and ran a hand over his face.

"Listen to me, my grandson. Even if we could break this deal, you would not be safe in Dinétah much longer. There are forces at work that we have never seen before, not even in the worlds below. The dark wind is blowing stronger than ever. It won't be long now before the enemy brings the battle to us. And we have no way of knowing whether we will survive."

Dean didn't turn around, but his shoulders slumped.

Sam sighed. "Isn't there _anything_ you can do, my grandfather?"

Talking God met his eyes. "If—_if_—we can find someone who is willing to descend to the Burning-Pitch-Place, we will send that person to get Dean out. But Sam, that's a very big if. I can't promise anything. And no, the person we send can't be you or any other human; we wouldn't be able to transport you there and back safely. I'm sorry."

Dean finally managed to turn around and meet Talking God's eyes again. "_Ahéhee', shicheii_."

"_Hágoónee, shitsóóké_," Talking God returned and faded from view.

Dean waited until they were in the car and safely away from the mountain to unleash the string of profanity that expressed his deep, bitter disappointment. And Sam couldn't disagree.

* * *

Bobby had one outside, long-shot, last-ditch idea for killing Lilith to get Dean out of his deal. They found her, but she got the jump on them and sicced the hellhounds on Dean. He barely had time to register the pain before they were dragging his soul off to Hell.

Hell was indescribable—the Burning-Pitch-Place, yes, but echoing with constant screams, and Dean was subjected to relentless, unspeakable torture day in and day out. And his chief tormentor, Alastair, constantly offered to stop the pain if only Dean would step off the rack and torture someone else.

Dean always said no. He knew he didn't belong there. He knew Sam was looking for a way to spring him. He knew Talking God had promised to send help if help could be found, and for all his immediate disappointment that the deal couldn't be broken, he was willing to believe that Talking God would follow through if he could. Weeks became months; months became years; years became decades. And still Dean cherished that flicker of hope, however tiny, that help would come. Even when he'd nearly lost all sense of time and when his awareness faded into the haze of pain and remorse that came with his soul knitting itself together again at the end of a session, he would not take that deal.

It was also about the only way he had left to annoy Alastair.

One day, though—Dean figured he'd been down there something like forty years at that point—someone dared to intrude at the end of a session. He didn't get a good look at who it was; all he knew was that the other demon told Alastair, "We're out of time."

Alastair snarled... and the haze descended faster than ever.

Next thing Dean knew, he was in his Fed suit standing in a morgue, and there was a body stretched out on the autopsy table in front of him. He had a scalpel in his hand, and somehow he had the idea that he needed to find out how the victim died before the coroner got back. Weird as the notion felt, he went with it, quickly and efficiently cutting the body open, pulling back skin and muscle to reveal internal organs and pushing past the ribcage to get a look at the heart.

Which was still beating.

_No..._

Horrified, Dean dropped the knife and stumbled back from the table. As he did, the illusion vanished; the body became a live, screaming soul on a rack, and Alastair was cackling in undisguised glee.

_No__..._

Then something happened, and Alastair turned and tried to run but was struck down with a bolt of bright white flame. But as a burning hand clamped down on Dean's left shoulder and pulled him away, one last thought crossed his mind before he lost consciousness:

_I never agreed to this..._

* * *

Watching Dean die was, hands down, the single worst thing that had ever happened to Sam. When Lilith fled, he bawled his eyes out over Dean's mangled corpse; there was no way he could even pretend to be as stoic about it as Navajo tradition said he should be. And Bobby, bless him, not only didn't judge but was just as distraught as Sam was.

But when Bobby offered to cut Sam's hair and put it on the pyre with the body, Sam refused. Talking God had promised help, and Sam had every intention of holding him to that promise. He didn't cut his hair; he took the amulet for safe keeping but insisted on burying Dean in a grave shallow enough to be easy to get out of; and after a few bouts of drunken commiseration with Bobby, he threw himself into research to try to find a spirit capable of retrieving Dean that might be outside Talking God's normal circle of acquaintance. Bobby tried a couple of times to get Sam to go back to hunting, but Sam just couldn't. There _had_ to be a solution somewhere; he couldn't let himself believe otherwise. And he couldn't stop looking for it while Dean was suffering under such monstrous injustice.

Four long, disheartening months went by, and still Sam kept searching, losing himself in his work to the point that Bobby occasionally had to physically drag him away to eat and sleep. So engrossed was he one day in mid-September, digging through a tricky text that Bobby had decided to store in his newly-built panic room for safe keeping, that the sounds of a scuffle upstairs barely registered.

That is, until a very familiar voice bellowed, "Dammit, Bobby, stop tryin' to kill me!"

Sam was halfway up the basement stairs before he even realized he was running. Then he burst out into the first-floor hall just as a holy-water-drenched Dean drew a silver knife across his arm to prove his identity.

"Dean," Sam breathed.

Dean looked up at him and grinned. "Hey, Sammy."

Sam rushed over and pulled Dean into the tightest hug of his life, heedless of the blood getting smeared on the back of his shirt. Dean was warm and solid and _real_ and _alive_, and Sam was so relieved that he didn't care if he looked like a giant girl.

When Sam finally let go, Bobby had tears in his eyes and pulled Dean into a hug of his own. "How'd you get out, boy?" he asked quietly when he released Dean. "Sam's been burning up the books trying to find something for you."

Dean shook his head. "I don't know. I can't remember. I just... woke up in a pine box under three feet of dirt. Whatever pulled me out left a hell of a calling card, though. There were trees down for a hundred-yard radius—looked like a nuke went off. And something's been following me; dunno if it rode me out or what. I've been seein' EMF signs and hearin' this... ear-splitting, high-pitched whine. Shattered some windows a few states back."

"You hear it now?"

"No, it's not constant."

Sam pondered this information. "Maybe whatever Talking God sent is trying to contact you."

Dean nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, could be. Think we should go ask him?"

"Can't hurt. We ought to thank him for the help anyway."

"Good point. You want to come, Bobby?"

Bobby shook his head. "Nah, you boys go on. I'll see if there's a stone Sam left unturned that might tell us what it is."

"Sure. Thanks. _Sołtį'_, Sammy."

Sam thanked Bobby for the help and the hospitality, gathered his things, and led Dean out to the Impala. He had—barely—remembered to wash it and take it for a drive every so often to keep the battery and such in good shape, but he hadn't done much else with it. And Dean seemed grateful that he'd kept both the car and the amulet safe for him.

It was a long two-day drive to Flagstaff, which gave the brothers time to catch up (well, as much as they could, given that Dean had apparently blocked all memory of his time in Hell) and figure out how best to approach Talking God. It was well after dark when they finally got to Abalone Shell Mountain, so they quickly made their way to the same spot where they'd met Talking God before, sat down on a couple of blankets, and began to sing a song of thanksgiving.

They were barely one verse in when Talking God appeared, waving frantically. "Stop! Stop!"

Startled, Sam and Dean shut up.

"I appreciate your gratitude, my grandsons, but this was not our doing. Save your thanks until you find the one to whom praise belongs. The whole spirit world is in an uproar over Dean's return, and we don't understand what's happening."

Dean frowned. "Well, if _you_ didn't send help, and _Sam_ didn't send help... who did, and what the hell was it that pulled me out of there? And why is it following me?"

Talking God looked him over and pointed to his left shoulder. "Let me see the mark."

Sam blinked in confusion, but Dean shot him a nervous look before shrugging out of his overshirt and rolling up the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal a livid burn mark shaped like a man's handprint. Talking God examined the burn visually, then gently brushed two eagle feathers over it and hummed thoughtfully.

"Its name is Castiel," he concluded. "Beyond that, I'm not—" He broke off, looking up as if hearing something. "Wait here. I'll be right back." And he vanished.

"Does it hurt?" Sam whispered.

"Not so much now," Dean replied. "Did when I first got out."

Then they waited in silence until Talking God reappeared, looking... not quite grim, but certainly not jolly, and maybe a little rattled. "Castiel has urgent business with you, Dean. Return to your hogan. He will speak to you there."

Dean blinked. "What is he?"

"You should hear that from him, I think. But he is not a demon or any other resident of the Burning-Pitch-Place." Talking God paused. "Dean... Sam... be careful. There are dread omens abroad. I don't know for certain what they mean, but I fear that our medicine may not help you much longer."

The brothers thanked him again and took their leave.

As late as it was, the family was sound asleep when they got to the ranch. Dean shut off the lights and coasted in to park by the corral so as not to wake anyone. Then they rode up to their hogan and waited up for Castiel, neither of them saying much.

Sam didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until he woke with a start to the smell of breakfast the next morning. And for the second before Dean realized he was awake, Sam got a good glimpse of the sour look on his face.

Dean masked it quickly, though. "Mornin', sunshine. Grandmother wasn't too happy about us sneakin' in last night and not planning to stay, but she sent breakfast."

Sam blinked. "We're not staying?"

Dean shook his head. "Need to get back to Bobby's, get his opinion on this Castiel thing."

Sam looked around in confusion, spotting the salt line intact and a couple of spent shotgun shells in a corner. "Dean... what happened last night?"

Dean shoved a plate of food into his hand. "You keeled over, and Castiel walked in. I hit him with everything but the Colt, no reaction. He says he's an angel."

"—Angel? As in real live wings-and-halo kind of angel?"

"'S what he said. I don't believe him. That's why we need to get back to Bobby's place, fast. Eat up."

Still bewildered but more hopeful than he'd felt in a couple of years, Sam nodded and ate. But they were barely back in cell phone range when Bobby called them to meet him in Gillette, Wyoming, to check on a hunter friend of his who'd stopped answering her phone... and after that, they were up to their ears in the kind of weirdness Talking God had warned them about. And by the end of it, Dean had somehow lost his doubts about Castiel and about what was going on.

Lilith was trying to start the Apocalypse. And both brothers agreed she needed to be stopped at all costs.

* * *

.

* * *

'Akóhájí Doogááł – He Will Go the Same Way

Bináá' łitso – Yellow-Eyes

Haidzaa? – What happened?

Diné – Navajo

Amá Sání – maternal grandmother

Zhini – African-American

Tha mi e a' faicinn – I see it

Nidáá – Enemy Way ceremony

chindi – evil spirit/ghost

Yáát'ééh, Haashch'éélt'i'í, shicheii. – Greetings, Talking God, my grandfather.

Ahéhee' – Thank you

Hágoónee, shitsóóké – Farewell, my grandsons

Sołtį' – Let's go

Note: _Shicheii_ and _shitsóóké_ refer to maternal grandfather-grandchild relationships, but _shicheii_ can also be a form of respectful address, especially when speaking to gods—Talking God in particular—and other supernatural powers.


	2. Immovable Object

Chapter 2  
Immovable Object

Dean knew something was off the moment he woke up on the park bench. He'd been talking to Castiel, but he couldn't remember what they'd been talking about. And when he walked into Jay Bird's Diner, that sense of wrongness doubled, then trebled when he saw the date on the newspaper and the much younger version of Dad who was sitting at the counter. It wasn't just a matter of being in the wrong year, though that was part of it. _Something_ kept tickling the back of his mind, not quite déjà vu, but some warning that things were about to go spectacularly wrong. But he couldn't put his finger on it, so he followed the instinct he could put his finger on: protecting Mom and Dad, in spite of Castiel's conflicting warnings of "you have to stop it" and "you can't change the past." He even went so far as to 'borrow' the Colt from Daniel Elkins.

And all it got him was a clearer picture of the blood-spell _Bináá łitso_ had placed on Sam and the sickening knowledge that he'd drawn _Bináá łitso_'s attention to Mom.

The fog cleared as soon as Castiel brought him back to the present, though, and Dean cursed as he found the missing memory. Before the angel could say anything, Dean stormed out to the car and grabbed Mom's journal out of the trunk.

"Dean?" Castiel asked, following. "What's wrong?"

"My name," Dean growled, flipping to the first entry about the Whitshire interview. "The missing word was _my name_."

Castiel came over to look at the place where Dean was pointing—and as they both watched, the smeared ink returned to its original state: _Charlie Whitshire says the man had yellow eyes. Dean says it's the demon that killed his family, but Dad's never heard of a demon having yellow eyes before, and he's so sure he's right that he's not listening to anything else Dean says..._

"You set me up," Dean snarled. "You stopped me from remembering. You let me walk _right into_ that house knowing I'd put Mom on Azazel's radar."

Wide-eyed, Castiel shook his head. "No, Dean, I was acting on orders from my superiors, and I didn't tamper with your memory. I understood that the deal would have been made even without your attempted interference. Destiny can't be changed. But that those words were expunged from your mother's journal... puts an entirely different light on the subject."

"Look here." Dean moved his finger down to another newly-revealed line. "I warned her. I warned her, and she _wrote it down_. And _something_ made damn sure that line was erased before I was born, from here and from her memory."

"I don't understand. If your mother's death was my Father's will, such erasures would not be necessary."

"Then why the hell did they happen, Cas? Who wanted her dead?"

Cas didn't even react to the nickname. "I don't know, Dean. I'm as confused as you are. I'm sorry. I wish I had the answer for you. And I can't be sure whether I can find out. But if I can, I will."

"What do you mean, you don't know if you can find out?"

"We're expected to obey without question. My superiors are very strict on this point. I could be demoted or reassigned—or worse."

"And that's supposed to trump doing the right thing?"

Cas looked a little like a kicked puppy. "Surely there is a logical explanation, some reason that is beyond your ability to see at this point. I will... find it if I can. I'm sorry, Dean." And he vanished.

Seconds later, Sam returned from the diner down the street with the breakfast he'd gone out to get before Cas turned up. He stopped short at the look on Dean's face. "... Dean? _Haidzaa?_"

"Inside," Dean replied tightly, keeping his place in the journal with his finger while he closed the trunk.

Sam warily followed him into the room and set the food on the table before accepting the opened journal from Dean. He read about two lines and looked up at Dean, the color draining from his face. "What—how—"

"Seems angels can time travel. Cas took me on what was supposed to be a fact-finding mission. Only for some reason, I forgot that book existed until I got back. He swears he didn't know anything about the journal, didn't mess with my memory, was just following orders."

"Do you believe him?"

Dean sighed. "I dunno. Maybe. He's hard to read, but he sounded pretty confused. Question is..."

"Whose orders and why."

"Exactly."

Sam shut the journal carefully. "So what was the fact you were supposed to find?"

Dean switched to Gaelic. "Yellow-Eyes told me what he did to you. He dripped his blood in your mouth, so now there's demon blood in your veins, giving you powers. He said it's about more than just you leading Hell's army, but Cas says they don't know what it is about. And Cas kept saying I have to stop it, so I guess the angels want me to stop you."

Sam swallowed and frowned as he replied in kind. "Stop me from what? What powers am I supposed to have, and what do they think I'm doing with them?"

"I don't know. Something about this whole mess stinks to high heaven."

"I thought my powers died with Yellow-Eyes. I haven't had a vision since. Ruby kept dropping hints, but knowing what she was, I have to assume she lied about that just like she lied about being able to help you."

"Maybe so. You know I want to trust you on this, Sam. But I want to trust Cas, too. I just..."

Sam nodded. "I understand. And I don't want powers. We've got the Colt; that's enough to kill Lilith."

Dean nodded thoughtfully. "True. Maybe Cas meant I have to help you stop Lilith. I don't know."

There they let the matter drop for the time being and sat down and ate. But Dean, though he made himself finish everything, wasn't actually hungry, and from the way he picked at his food, Sam wasn't, either.

* * *

Sam wasn't sure exactly what it was about the sudden change in Dean's demeanor during the case in Rock Ridge, Colorado, that set off his internal alarms, but when Dean started scratching his arms after the hands-on autopsy, the _Diné_ side of his brain clicked the last piece of the puzzle into place. "Dude. How far is it to Chinle?"

Dean blinked. "C-couple, three hours, I guess. Why? You... don't want to try to drive there tonight, do you? I mean, those are pretty twisty roads. And there's deer."

"Well, we may need to, if Chris can't get up here." Sam grabbed his cell phone and started scrolling through the phone book.

"Chris?"

"Begay. Gwen's husband."

"Wait, why do we—aw, _come on!_"

"The symptoms match, Dean. But considering how fast the ghost sickness is moving, I don't think we've got the time to do a full _Nidáá_, even if it were the right time of year. Chris should know the protocol for an emergency like this."

Dean buried his face in his hands with a muffled curse. "All these years, and I get ghost sickness from the _chindi_ of a damn _Bilagáana_ we don't even know."

Sam shot him a worried look and called Chris.

Unfortunately, Chris didn't think he could get away in time to stop the ghost sickness from progressing further. Fortunately, they had what they needed to be able to improvise. So while Bobby drove down to figure out what to do about the actual ghost, Sam turned the hotel room's bathroom into a makeshift sweat lodge and, ignoring Dean's paranoid objections, turned the bathtub's hot water tap on full and just let it run. The steam prompted Dean to cough up a couple of wood chips, which Sam set aside to destroy properly. After the prescribed period of sweating, Sam got Dean dried off and rubbed down with yucca suds and cornmeal. Then he smeared soot on Dean's temples, arms, and palms and red ochre on his hair, chest, and back.

"Any better?" he asked at that point.

Dean swallowed hard and considered. "Well... my arms don't itch. I guess that's an improvement."

Sam nodded. "Okay. Prayer sticks next."

Making the prayer sticks and sand painting took most of the night. Sam had to scramble to get the sand and the wood chips properly disposed of before dawn and barely remembered to save some sand to put in Dean's boots and Fed shoes. But while the process hadn't been completely effective, Dean did feel better enough to shower and eat around daybreak. Bobby had arrived in the meantime and gotten his own room, so he brought breakfast when Sam called, and together they went over the details they had.

Once they'd connected the wood chips to the abandoned lumber mill, Bobby gave Dean a once-over. "How you holdin' up?"

Dean sighed. "Honestly, Bobby... I'm better, but I'm still pretty damn jumpy. I... don't even know if I could look out the window right now; we're on the fourth floor, and that's... that's high."

Bobby nodded. "All right. You two stay here, keep doin' what you need to, buy us some more time. I'll go see what I can find out at the mill."

Dean nodded his agreement, and Sam rubbed his back a little and said, "Thanks, Bobby."

After further consultation with Chris, Sam made Dean a tea infused with amaranth and potentilla, put in a pinch of salt, and browbeat him into drinking it without the addition of any alcohol. Then they went through the sweat process again, but this time Sam confined the soot and ochre to areas that could be covered by Dean's shirt in case they needed to go out again. And sure enough, about the time they were finished, Bobby called to ask them to interview a witness regarding the death of Luther Garland, their probable ghost, while he got to work on tracking down ways to dispatch the spirit. Dean was still anxious but insisted he'd be good to go as long as the ochre didn't bleed through his shirt, so they suited up and went.

On the one hand, Sam was glad he'd brought Dean both so that he could keep an eye on him and so that he wouldn't have to repeat the story. And Dean did get through the interview okay. On the other hand, the realization that Luther's road-hauling probably meant that the ghost couldn't be dispatched with a simple salt-and-burn jarred Dean enough that he retreated into rambling in Navajo about how insane the hunting life was. Sam collared him before he could run off and made him drink some more tea, which helped, but he still wouldn't speak English on the drive back to the hotel.

When Bobby returned, he'd found an obscure Japanese text that basically suggested scaring the ghost to death. Dean was both insulted ("Japanese? _Seriously?_") and skeptical, but he assured Sam that he wasn't hallucinating and that he'd be okay by himself, so Sam took Bobby outside and suggested reenacting the road-hauling. For lack of a better option, Bobby agreed. And it worked—though not quite fast enough, because they got back to find Dean fighting with the sheriff. Though the ghost sickness itself was gone, it had evidently done a number on the sheriff's mind, and he was not about to let "you damn Tontos" turn him in for failing to investigate Luther's death.

All three hunters decided Dean needed a break after that one, so the brothers went through Chinle to thank Chris on their way to Grandmother's, where they tried not to worry about the Apocalypse for a few days. It... sort of worked.

* * *

The reason it only sort of worked was that being on the ranch meant seeing first-hand how low Grandmother's and Amá Sání's food stores were and hearing all about the weird things that had started happening across the reservation since Dean's return. Crops failing. Sheep dying. Wells that had been in use for hundreds of years suddenly going dry. Food spoiling too soon. Adults drinking themselves to death, even if they'd never touched alcohol before. An outbreak of Hanta virus near Shiprock. Whooping cough shutting down the elementary schools in Indian Wells. The BIA clinic in Tsaile being burglarized and all the medications stolen. A fire on Gobernador Knob that wiped out a whole host of rare plants used by the singers in their medicine bundles.

It was the last event that convinced Dean that something more was at work than just bad luck. Gobernador Knob was where First Man had found the infant Changing Woman; it was the heart of Dinétah. Something was attacking the Navajo Nation deliberately.

Sam didn't take much convincing, and the brothers spent most of the next several days in Tuba City, holed up in the library researching, making phone calls, trying to establish patterns. Nothing clear emerged; the events were too varied and dispersed to be the work of a single witch, and Bobby couldn't definitely link the attacks to anything else. Dean floated the suggestion that all of the skinwalkers on the reservation might be acting in concert to aid Lilith, but Sam shot that down a few moments later when he found that one of the first victims to die of Hanta virus had been a skinwalker.

Then he said, "Hey, Dean? Have you found any news about all this in the national media?"

Dean snorted. "When the hell has the white press cared about what happens on the rez?"

"Well, I know, but... I mean, Hanta virus? That's so deadly, the CDC ought to be putting out some kind of a warning against travel, and the way people die is so horrible, it ought to make sensational headlines. And about fifty more people have starved to death than usual in Tsaile, too. You'd think _somebody_ would notice."

Dean frowned and started searching news sites, and Sam started searching aid organizations to see whether any of the groups that they knew had outreach points on the reservation had sounded the alarm. There were a few reports from groups like the Salvation Army of relief attempts being sabotaged or food shipments that had been fine at the warehouse being rotten and buggy on arrival. Beyond that, all they found was silence.

So they tried organizing online fundraisers, petitions, and letter-writing campaigns. Nothing got anyone's attention. Yet all across the reservation, people were dying of starvation or of diseases that could have been treated had the clinics and hospitals not been desperately short of medicines. The numbers kept climbing throughout October, but the silence in the wider world was deafening.

Finally, out of sheer desperation to find some way to help relieve the suffering, the brothers hijacked a Niveus Pharmaceutical truck outside St. George, Utah, on October 30. After checking for hex bags and EMF, Sam drove the truck while Dean followed in the Impala; Chris and Gwen were supposed to meet them at Bitter Springs to organize some way to distribute the medications. Everything was fine as the two-vehicle convoy sped through the Utah wilderness and crossed into Arizona. But the second the truck crossed completely onto Navajo land, Dean swore loudly as he saw the entire trailer become engulfed in cockroaches.

"SAM!" he yelled into his CB.

The truck immediately pulled over, and Sam jumped out, cursing and staring in shock at the trailer. "Dean, what the hell do we do?!"

"Flamethrower? Bug spray? How do I know?!"

Just as suddenly as the roaches had appeared, however, the trailer suddenly erupted in flame. And between it and the brothers, two figures appeared; one was Cas, and the other was a sour-faced _Zhini_.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Dean bellowed. "We NEEDED that, Cas!"

Cas looked at the burning truck in slight confusion and back. "I'm... sorry to interrupt, Dean, but we need your help. There's a seal—"

"Forget it. Find someone else. Or better yet, do it yourselves; you're angels."

"But Dean—"

"I said forget it, Cas. I don't care about your damn seal. _My people are dying_."

Cas was taken aback, but the _Zhini_ spoke up. "The alternative, Dean, is that we smite the town to stop the witch from breaking the seal."

"Yeah? Well, you can forget that, too, Chuckles."

"My name is Uriel."

"Find another hunter. Save the damn seal. And then _help me save my people._"

Uriel snarled. "Listen, you mud monkey—"

"Uriel," Cas interrupted, and Uriel shut up. Then Cas looked over his shoulder, and the fire went out, leaving what looked like an intact and bug-free truck behind. When he turned back to Dean, looking sad, he said, "All humans are your people, Dean, not just the _Diné_."

"I'm not leavin', Cas," Dean repeated more quietly. "Not while they're still dyin' and no one else cares."

Cas nodded. "We'll do what we can." And the angels left.

After a moment of stunned silence, Sam got out his flashlight, and the brothers made their way to the truck cautiously. But there was no sign of fire damage or of bugs, and the boxes inside looked intact. So with a sigh and a shrug, they closed it back up and went on their way to Bitter Springs.

Just outside of town, the Winchesters discovered that the Begays had arranged some sort of meet-up that night with doctors from all over the reservation who needed medicines desperately. They triple-checked every box as they unloaded it and handed it off; all looked as pristine as if they had just rolled off the assembly line in Nevada. Once the last box was distributed, the doctors all drove off into the darkness, and Gwen and Chris took the truck to dump while Sam and Dean headed back to the ranch.

The boys went back to Tuba City two days later to try to sort out what had happened to cause the spontaneous roach outbreak. But Bobby was still in the middle of getting Sam's side of the story when Dean got a call from Gwen.

Every last box of the medications they'd delivered had been ruined by the time the clinics opened the next morning, either covered with mold or overrun with bugs or arachnids.

Devastated, Dean gave the bad news to Bobby and Sam, then went down the street to a park and just... sat. He couldn't even process anything. They had tried so damn hard...

"Hello, Dean."

Dean looked up to see Cas sitting beside him. "Hey. How'd it go?"

"Jo and Ellen Harvelle did their best. They were able to put a stop to the uprising of zombies and demons and exorcise the demon behind it, and we were able to save the town."

"But?"

"The seal did break."

Dean sighed. "I wouldn't have done anything different, Cas. I don't regret making that choice."

Cas frowned a little. "No, Dean... I was praying you would choose as you did. Our orders were to follow your commands; it was a test to see how you would perform under battle conditions. That's why I came back, too. In fact, that's why I restored the truck Uriel destroyed. You were right. Your people do need those medicines."

"Uriel the reason they all went bad anyway?"

Cas looked confused, fluttered away, and reappeared a second later, looking disturbed. "No. Something else is at work here, something extremely powerful. I didn't realize it then, or I would have warded those boxes."

Now it was Dean's turn to frown. "Powerful—like Lilith?"

"No, no demon could do this, but whatever it is, it's probably acting on Lilith's behalf."

"So what do we do? How do we stop it?"

"I don't know. Whatever it is, it's concealing itself well. But I did ward the clinics I checked, though I don't know how many lives that will save. And at the very least, I can add extra protection to that anti-possession tattoo of yours. You'll need to be healthy to continue the fight."

"Not just mine. You do that for me, you do it for Sam."

Cas blinked and stared at Dean for a moment, then nodded. "Very well."

They walked together back to the coffee shop where Sam was wrapping up the conversation with Bobby. Sam hung up quickly and stood as they walked up, staring in breathless awe at Cas.

"Sam," said Dean, "this is Castiel."

Cas nodded. "Hello, Sam."

"You came back," Sam said, his eyes suspiciously bright. "You—I mean—sorry, I just..." He rallied enough to hold out his hand. "It's an honor. I've heard so much about you."

Cas looked a little baffled until Dean nodded at him, then took Sam's hand in both of his. "And I you, Sam. I'm glad to see that you haven't fallen into temptation."

Sam blushed.

Dean decided it was time to step in. "Cas thinks whatever's attacking the rez is working for Lilith."

Cas nodded. "Yes, and while I may not be able to do much more to help you stop it, I can at least offer you more protection against its powers."

Sam looked from Cas to Dean and back and shrugged. "Okay, sure."

Cas raised two fingers and touched them to Sam's chest, right above his tattoo. Dean couldn't see what happened, but Sam gasped a little. Then Cas did the same to Dean, and Dean felt a sharp pain flare just under his skin for a split second.

"There," said Cas. "Those wards will not be visible, but they will protect you better than a hex bag would."

Dean had just opened his mouth to thank Cas when a sudden wind shook the building—and everyone around them started coughing deep, racking coughs. One asthmatic went for her inhaler but lost consciousness before she could use it.

"Pnemonia," Cas said quietly with a frown. Then his eyes widened. "And it's headed toward your grandmother's ranch. You go; I'll do what I can here."

Dean slapped Cas on the shoulder, and he and Sam ran for the car and raced back to the ranch. But as fast as they were, they couldn't outpace the wind. Grandmother and Grandfather were already sick when the boys arrived; Grandmother barely had time to smile at the boys before she stopped breathing altogether. Cursing, they ran to check on Amá Sání, but she too was very sick, and Dean realized for the first time just how frail the lack of food had made her.

"Monster Slayer," she wheezed as Dean scooped her up and ran toward the car. "Your brother... must cut the life out... of the enemy... the night grows dark... but day will come... he will come back..."

"Hold on, _shimásání_," Dean said.

She coughed and murmured a blessing over them... and then she, too, was gone.

As Dean stumbled to a halt and met Sam's tear-filled eyes with a whimper of despair, he heard a flutter of wings and then felt Cas' hand come down on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Dean. She's at peace. I'll see to Joe and Sarah." And he left again.

Dean was still cradling Amá Sání's body in his arms when Cas returned with Grandfather, who was now well and staring at the angel in shock. Aunt Sarah, too, Cas was able to heal. But nobody else said much of anything for the rest of the traditional four-day period of mourning over both Grandmother and Amá Sání, during which Cas came and went, healing as many people as he could before he had to go back to protecting the seals on Lucifer's Cage.

A cold rage built in Dean over those four days, and he sensed that Sam felt the same way. So once their mourning was done, they didn't even have to talk about it to know that they needed to get back to the outside world. It was time to stop chasing the middleman and take down Lilith.

* * *

"But we've only broken fifty seals!" Lilith objected.

The Horsemen's demonic liaison, who had retaken his willingly-vacated host and said host's name, shrugged. "The Winchesters were there. Pestilence and Famine believed the time was right. Besides, they weren't sure how long they could keep Castiel or Sam from figuring out that they were behind the attack. Dean's ready to gut Pestilence in any case, and he can do it easily enough if he catches Pestilence before Lord Lucifer rises."

Lilith snarled something in Ugaritic.

Brady frowned. "There are six hundred seals. Surely you haven't run out of ones that could be broken outside the US."

"No, but the easiest ones are gone. And I don't know how many others we can break before they catch up to me."

"Okay. How many easy ones are there in the US?"

"Are you offering to help?"

"If it's within my job description. I will still need to be on the Horsemen's good side after the last seal breaks, after all."

She looked at him narrowly for a moment before answering. "Seven. Abaddon will see to the Reapers on the solstice. That leaves us with seven more before the last."

"What about your double agent?"

"We can't use Uriel. He has to keep Castiel from figuring out what's going on."

"I wasn't talking about Uriel."

She took a step forward. "The angels are making too many mistakes. We can't rely on their ability to hide their involvement."

He looked away, then back down at her; even though she'd taken a new, adult host, she was still shorter than he. "Look, it's not my fault that the timetable's moved up, but we have _six weeks_ to the solstice. I know you can evade the Winchesters that long. But can we break all fifteen seals in the time that's left _without_ the angels' help?"

She pulled a list out of the air and handed it to him. "Have your people take care of these, and do it fast. I'll talk to Zachariah."

He sighed, bowed, and vanished.

And in Kripke's Hollow, Ohio, Chuck Shurley woke with a start, made coffee to clear away the headache and beer goggles, and sat down to research what the hell was going on in Arizona, at least so he could describe the mourning rituals the right way in case the publisher ever got the funds to pick up the _Supernatural_ series again. He had no clue what he'd do with the information, especially if it was true, but...

... but...

... but it _was_ true. Emily Winchester's obituary in the _Navajo Times_ was one of the first hits Google turned up—and it included the sentence, "Emily is survived by her husband Joe and her grandsons Sam and Dean." And the obituary of her mother, Janet Chee, was on the same page.

Chuck sat in front of his computer in shock for a long moment, a shaking hand over his mouth. Finally, he swallowed hard and typed "singer salvage yard" into the search bar.

And the power and the phone line both went out at the same moment.

After a few panicked pants, Chuck did the only sensible thing he could do. He ran.

* * *

A strange car was parked outside Bobby's house when Sam and Dean arrived, so they took the precaution of knocking before they let themselves in. Bobby wasn't immediately visible from the door.

"Bobby?" Dean called.

"Down here," came the reply from the basement.

That was weird. "Why's Bobby in the basement when..." Sam asked.

Dean shot him a look. "Do I look like I know? C'mon."

So they clomped down the stairs to find Bobby sitting in the panic room and talking with a scruffy, scrawny little guy with curly brown hair and worried blue eyes. Said scruffy guy, who was sitting on the cot, just about hyperventilated when he saw them.

"Boys," said Bobby. "This here's Chuck Shurley."

"I'm sorry," Chuck blurted out. "I'm so sorry—I never would have if I'd known—"

Dean held up a hand. "Wait, whoa, slow down. Dude, we don't even know you. What are you sorry for?"

"The books."

Both brothers blinked and chorused, "Books?"

Chuck nodded. "I... I guess I'm psychic or something. Which I guess ought to be a relief, 'cause I can't tell you how many times I've been accused of ripping off Tony Hillerman, but—I mean, if even half of what I've written down has been true, then..."

"Chuck," Sam interrupted, "slow down. You think you're psychic?"

"Right. I've, um... it's been about four years now, I've been writing books. About you. I... I get these terrible headaches, and I take aspirin and drink until I pass out, and then I have these really vivid dreams about you. And I've been turning them into novels, because I thought they were just dreams, y'know?"

Sam and Dean exchanged a look of alarm.

"But then... then I dreamed about... about the pneumonia thing last week, and then yesterday I had another dream that was so weird, I figured I needed to do some more research. And I... I found... oh, gosh, guys, I'm so sorry about your grandmother and—"

"Y—thanks," Dean cut in. "What was the weird dream? And why are you here?"

"I'm here because something tried to stop me from contacting you about the dream."

The brothers exchanged another look. Then they stepped into the panic room, shut the door, and sat down on the chairs Bobby had evidently brought down for them.

"What do you mean, something tried to stop you?" Dean asked.

Chuck swallowed hard. "I was about to Google Mr. Singer's phone number when the power went out. So I picked up the phone to call Directory Assistance, but the line was dead. And my cell phone wouldn't work, either, no matter where I've tried to call from on the road. So I just... I ran. I drove straight to Sioux Falls—well, as straight as I could, had to stop for gas and food and stuff. And I went to the sheriff's department to get directions. I knew... I mean, I figured if the pneumonia was real, and you guys were real, then maybe the panic room was real, too."

"Well, it is," Bobby said. "And we're in it, so tell us what that dream was about."

Chuck swallowed hard again. "Lilith. She's taken a new host, and she said that fifty seals have already broken. They plan to break another fourteen in the next six weeks, then the next-to-last on the winter solstice—it's got something to do with Abaddon and Reapers."

"Do you know where?" Sam asked.

Chuck shook his head. "I think they're breaking as many outside the US as they can so you guys won't be able to stop them."

"What about the last seal?"

"I didn't get anything about it. Sorry."

Dean leaned forward. "Why the rush? And what made you look up what's been going on in Arizona?"

"I-I'm not sure I understood right, but it sounded like the attack was being launched by Famine and Pestilence. And now they have to move fast because you're so mad about it."

"Famine and pestilence?"

"As in two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Brady said they're not at full strength, but..."

Sam sat up straighter. "Brady? As in—"

Chuck nodded. "He's possessed again. I'm sorry, Sam."

Dean frowned as he tried to put the pieces together. "So Lilith had Famine and Pestilence attack the rez—what, like Meg killed Pastor Jim and Caleb?"

"Pretty much."

"Why?"

Chuck shook his head. "I don't know. I think I only got part of the conversation; it didn't all make sense. And some of it's fading. I know Brady said you were about ready to gut Pestilence, though."

"Well, he got that right. I'd gut all of 'em. But I think I'll leave Lilith for Sammy."

Sam answered with a small but deadly dangerous smile.

"How do we find her?"

Chuck sighed. "I don't know. I couldn't tell where they were; there weren't any landmarks or anything. It was just a room, no windows. She's probably on the other side of the world, though."

Dean leaned back and was just wondering how seriously to take the information when Cas appeared in the middle of the group, looking frazzled and startling the hell out of all four humans. "CAS!" Dean yelped. "Don't you _knock?!_"

"Dean, Sam," said Cas, sounding almost plaintive. "Three seals have fallen in the last hour. Lilith seems determined to break them all before the year is out. And seven angels have died in the last two days. We need your help—" Cas paused and turned as if noticing Chuck for the first time, then turned back to Dean with a puzzled frown. "Why is the prophet here?"

"Proph—oh, you gotta be _kidding! This_ guy?!"

"Y-you're an angel?" Chuck stammered. "You're Castiel?"

Cas turned back to him for a moment. "Yes, Chuck, and I am a great admirer of your work." Then he looked back at Sam and Dean. "He is charged with recording your legend for future generations. But I don't understand why he's in this room."

"It's for protection, Cas," said Sam. "He came to Bobby for help."

"Each prophet is protected by an archangel. He shouldn't need this precaution."

"So explain how something got close enough to try to stop him from contacting us with a vision about Lilith."

Startled, Cas looked at Chuck, who nodded. Then he looked up and around warily before focusing on Dean again. "Let me borrow a knife."

Dean handed Cas his pocketknife. Cas sliced his arm open, used the blood to finger-paint a sigil on the door, cleaned the knife with a glance, and handed it back to Dean. Then he sat down hard next to Chuck as if he was suddenly lightheaded.

"Y'okay there, Feathers?" Bobby asked.

Cas looked at him. "No. I... I fear there may be a traitor among the angels. Perhaps more than one."

Sam frowned. "I thought for angels, the Fall was a one-time deal. The ones who fought Lucifer can't fall, and the ones who fell with him can't repent."

"There may be some universe where that is true, but here... it's complicated. We _may_ not fall—that is, we are not allowed to disobey—but we are still capable of falling."

Dean leaned forward. "Cas, what's that sigil you just drew? Some kind of angel proofing?"

"Not precisely, but it is a ward against other angels."

"And you drew that because..."

Cas looked him in the eye. "Apart from the four humans in this room, I have no idea who to trust."

Chuck shifted. "I... think Lilith mentioned Uriel."

Cas nodded sadly. "I don't want to believe it of him, but it may be true. He hates humans, and I don't know why. But Uriel is a specialist; he deals out death in judgment. He wouldn't manipulate memories."

Bobby blinked. "Chuck, you said you think there's some of that vision that you forgot?"

Chuck nodded.

Dean's eyes narrowed. "So wait, Cas, you're thinking whatever messed with Mom's memory, her journal, my memory, and now maybe Chuck's memory..."

"Could well have been an angel," Cas concluded gravely. "And that would explain why it could pass the archangel to try to stop Chuck from contacting you. It might also explain why my orders have been so bewildering lately; they seem to be sending me in exactly the wrong directions to stop any seals from breaking."

A heavy silence hung over the panic room for a long moment.

"So what do we do?" Sam finally asked.

Cas shook his head. "I don't know. The only thing I'm sure of, assuming that _anything_ I've been told is true, is that only Lilith herself can break the final seal. We need to stop her somehow."

"That won't be easy," Chuck noted. "She knows you're after her, and Brady said he was sure she could stay hidden until the solstice."

"Solstice?"

"Yeah, she said, uh... 'Abaddon will see to the Reapers on the solstice.'"

"Well, that's something, but I'm not entirely sure it helps us. Even if we can stop Abaddon from performing the ritual and killing two Reapers, there are so many other seals that we may not be able to prevent another from breaking."

"Cas," Dean said firmly, "we cannot sit in this damn panic room for six weeks twiddling our thumbs. We need a plan." He paused for a beat. "Even if it's only to go back to the rez and twiddle our thumbs there, 'cause then at least we'd have more space."

"We got a whole house upstairs, idjit," Bobby grumbled.

Cas raised his head as if listening for something, then flitted out of the room for a moment before appearing again outside the panic room. "I've warded the house. You can come out."

"And?" Bobby asked as Sam got up to open the door.

"I suppose we begin by tracking Lilith by human means. I'll stay here as an additional measure of protection and monitor the conversations of the Host to see what I can learn that way."

"Um," said Chuck. "W-what about me?"

"Stay here," Dean replied. "Until we know who tried to stop you, you're better off with us, archangel or no archangel."

Chuck nodded and let the others usher him upstairs.

* * *

After some discussion, Cas carved some Enochian sigils into the brothers' ribs to keep them hidden from both angels and demons if they had cause to leave the house. Then Sam fired up Ash's Lilith-tracking program while Dean and Bobby tried to plan strategy, Chuck waited for a vision, and Cas listened to what Dean called Angel Radio. None of the above got them anywhere for a solid week, even when Sam widened the search parameters for the program to cover the entire globe. The few times anything did turn up, it appeared Lilith truly was on the other side of the world.

Then suddenly, in the middle of a conversation, Cas' eyes went wide and unfocused. "No," he breathed. "_Anna_..."

Sam and Dean looked at each other. "Uh, Cas?" Sam prompted.

Cas focused on him again. "I'm sorry. My sister needs help. I'll be back as soon as I can." And he was gone.

Dean threw up his hands. "Great. There goes our inside man."

Sam sighed. "We'll figure something out, Dean. I mean, maybe I can get Ash's program to track Abaddon, too, and we can stop him before the solstice."

"Yeah. It's a thought."

"Somethin' to do," Bobby added wryly.

So Sam and Bobby got to work pinning down omens they could definitely tie to Abaddon, and Dean cleaned guns. Chuck didn't seem sure whether to be alarmed or reassured by the size of the hunters' combined arsenal.

A few days later, Dean came down to breakfast looking a little confused and concerned. When Chuck asked if he was okay, Dean drew a deep breath and said, "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. I just... got a message from Cas. He showed up in a dream a few minutes ago."

"And?" Sam prompted.

"He said he found Anna, got her out of danger, but now they're both on the run. Anna just killed Uriel because he tried to kill Cas. They're trying to figure out what else is going on Upstairs, whether Uriel was the only traitor or not. He said he'll be back when he can."

Sam sighed. "Chuck, did you get anything last night?"

Chuck shook his head miserably. "No. I haven't had writer's block like this in months... like, since Dean got back from Hell, not that writing's been very easy since then. And I don't know how much advance notice I'm getting; I think I dreamed about the pneumonia outbreak, like, two days before it happened." He paused. "Speaking of which, Sam, can I just tell you how glad I am that you shot Ruby? 'Cause my first outline for what happened this summer was _disturbing_, even for me."

Sam and Dean looked at each other in alarm and asked, "Disturbing how?"

"Uh, y-you were supposed to try to make a crossroads deal, but the demon turned you down, and you killed it with Ruby's knife."

Sam frowned. "Not the Colt?"

"No, the-the Colt was supposed to have been stolen while you guys were dreamwalking to help Bobby. Bela was supposed to give it to Lilith. But that changed when you shot Ruby."

Sam's frown deepened. "Why?"

"I dunno. The dreams for that book came back, but they were different. And so were some of the later books—_Ghostfacers_ didn't change any, but like, in _No Rest for the Wicked_, Lilith was supposed to steal Ruby's host to get through your defenses. But that obviously wouldn't work if you knew Ruby was dead."

"So after I killed the crossroads demon..."

"None of the others would deal. You went on a bender. And then Ruby came back and saved your life and started teaching you how to use your powers to exorcise demons. But it-it didn't go very well, so she seduced you and then got you to start drinking her blood to make your powers stronger. And by the time Dean got back, you were addicted, even if you didn't know it yet."

Dean's eyebrows had been slowly inching up his forehead throughout Chuck's revelation. "Yeah, I'd say that qualifies as disturbing."

Sam shifted. "How far had your outline gone before the dreams changed?"

Chuck shrugged. "Only through the Rising of the Witnesses."

"And the changes came..."

"Mid-January."

Sam leaned back. "_After_ I'd shot Ruby. Huh."

Dean looked at him. "What are you thinking? We can't trust his intel?"

"No, but we need to be careful with it. I mean, it sounds like what he's been seeing lately has been accurate, but... something had our lives planned out nine months in advance, at least. And when we didn't follow the script, Chuck got rewrites."

"Not just you guys," Chuck confessed. "I wasn't expecting Talking God to know Loki."

Dean held up a finger. "So _somebody_ has a grand narrative already planned out—but it's not actually predestined, 'cause if it were, nothing we do could change it."

Sam nodded. "Sounds right to me, from what you said Cas said about Mom's journal."

"But anytime we do change it..."

"Somebody tries to force things back on track."

"So somebody is manipulating Chuck's visions, is that it?"

"Could be. I don't know how we could prove it for sure, though. I mean, we were able to prevent some of my visions from coming true. We saved Jess."

Bobby had been cooking this whole time and now brought a plate full of pancakes to the table. "Well, you know the old saying, 'Trust but verify.' If Chuck sees anything about where Lilith'll be, we can verify it with Ash's program. Then we take what we know for sure, figure in what we can't know and the probability of a nasty surprise, and act on it the best we know how."

The others agreed and ate.

* * *

Thanksgiving came and went before Dean heard from Cas again. Cas and Anna were still alive and on the run, he said, but they had managed to save a couple of seals and were closer to finding out who the other traitor might be. He didn't dare say more, though he promised again to return as soon as he could.

But another three weeks passed without further word. Sam's attempt at kludging together an Abaddon-tracking program was a bust without Cas there to tell them whether or not they were following the right omens, and from what Dean could tell from having taken over Bobby's switchboard duties, the demons had found other seals to break to make up for the ones Cas and Anna had saved. Dean was beginning to get fed up with the forced inaction; he knew they needed intel, but the wait was killing him. He seriously considered suggesting that they go back to the rez and see what Talking God could tell them, even if it meant not being able to cut Abaddon off at the pass.

Before he could, though, Chuck came down with a killer headache in the middle of supper. Bobby got him a bottle of Jack and settled him on the couch, and Sam and Dean packed their gear to be ready to move as soon as they could verify Chuck's vision. Yet as much as he tried, Chuck couldn't get to sleep easily because of the severity of the headache. Dean found himself falling asleep before Chuck did.

And it seemed that no sooner did he drop off for real than Cas showed up in his dream. "Dean. I've learned something important."

"Great," Dean replied. "Let's hear it."

"I can't tell you now. Even your dreams may be monitored. And Anna just gave herself up to help me escape my superiors. I'll tell you in person as soon as I can get to you."

"Okay, well, we're—"

"Dean! Don't tell me! I'll find you somehow. Just—be careful. I'll see you in a day or two."

And Dean woke with a start to find Sam about to shake him. "Hey," said Sam. "Chuck's got something."

"Great," Dean replied groggily. "Cas is on his way. He's all upset about something. What's the word, Chuck?"

Chuck groaned and accepted a mug of coffee from Bobby. "I... can't tell if this is a rewrite or what. But I saw Lilith about to attempt some kind of ceremony on the solstice."

That woke Dean up. "You're sure?"

Chuck nodded.

"Lilith, not Abaddon?"

Chuck nodded again. "I didn't get much. Just that Lilith was there and was in charge."

"Where?"

"Chapel of St. Mary's Convent. Ilchester, Maryland." Chuck took a long drink of coffee.

"I'll look it up," said Sam and grabbed his laptop.

Dean helped Bobby get breakfast going, and Chuck went back to sleep. But while Ash's program didn't turn up much, Sam found an old news article from 1972 about a massacre that had happened at St. Mary's, when the priest—who claimed to have been possessed by Azazel—slaughtered all of the nuns in the middle of Mass. The place had been deserted ever since the chapel had been desecrated.

"So which seal you reckon Lilith's figurin' to break?" Bobby asked. "Next-to-last or last?"

Sam shrugged. "Either way, if we can stop her, we stop everything."

Dean sighed. "Wish we could wait for Cas, but that's a long two-day drive, three to be safe with the weather."

"Well, as long as Bobby knows where we are, Cas can catch up to us. And we can keep an eye on the tracking program on our way."

"True."

"... But?"

"I dunno, Sam. We're missing something. I think Cas knows what it is. And I can't help feeling like we're about to walk right into a trap."

"Well, we can't keep waiting around, can we?"

Dean looked back at Chuck, who was still sacked out on the couch, and sighed. "No. I guess not."

So the brothers left after breakfast, taking their time on the genuinely treacherous winter roads. Sam was rather impatient with Dean's sudden desire to take his time, given the rush he'd been in when they didn't have any news. But Dean just couldn't shake the sense that they needed the piece of the puzzle that only Cas held, and he kept hoping that if they went slowly enough, Cas could catch up to them before anything went sideways.

Unfortunately, they weren't able to get all the way to Maryland on the 20th. And after Dean went out to warm up the car the next morning, he stepped back into the motel room—and found himself someplace completely different. The room was white with gilded trim, no windows and presumably only the door he'd entered through. There were all kinds of fancy art objects around the room, including a painting of Michael the Archangel killing a dragon, as well as a buffet-style table with a platter piled high with bacon cheeseburgers and a huge champagne bucket full of ice and bottles of beer. And standing next to said table was a guy who looked like a cross between Werner Klemperer and Gavin McLeod, beaming smugly.

"Hello, Dean," said the guy.

Dean felt his shocked expression sliding into a scowl. "You're an angel, aren't you?"

The guy nodded. "My name is Zachariah."

"That's all I need. Another one."

"I'm hardly another one, Dean. I'm Castiel's superior. And believe me, I had no interest in coming down here, but... circumstances being what they are, I needed to step in personally. And it's a good thing I did—do you know, I actually had to use a _map_ to find you? How did you manage to hide yourselves?"

"_Hodiyingo_," Dean snapped. "Where's Sam?"

"Oh, don't you worry about Sam. He's got a role to play still. But we needed to make sure _you_ were absolutely safe for the time being."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I said don't worry about it." Then Zachariah started offering him the burgers, the beer, Ginger and Mary Ann from _Gilligan's Island_, anything he could to deflect the question. But when Dean started countering with threats in Navajo, Zach gave up with a sigh and admitted, "The seals have fallen. All but one."

Dean's frown deepened. "_All_ but one? Even Abaddon's?"

"Yup."

"But the solstice—"

"Was yesterday—in New Zealand." And Dean thought he detected a very faint note of triumph in that statement. "But Lilith's the only one who can break the final seal. She'll be aiming for tonight at midnight."

"Super. Let me go to Sam so we can stop her."

"'Fraid I can't let you do that, Dean. It's too dangerous."

"I don't care. I'm leaving."

"Through what door?"

Dean spun, and the door he'd come in through was gone. When he turned back, so was Zachariah. He cursed in all three of his languages and tried to call Sam, but the signal was blocked. Then he cursed again, considered his options, and started examining the walls to try to find some way to make his escape.

He had no idea how much time passed as he plotted options and prayed to Cas as quietly as he could. Zach came in and out to try to convince him that resistance was futile. But finally the pieces of what Zach was and was not saying came together with a snap.

"You don't want Lilith stopped, do you?" he asked.

And Zach dropped the act. "Nope. Never did." Then he started pontificating about how the angels were going to beat Lucifer and establish paradise on Earth, brushing off Dean's objection about the millions of lives that would be lost in the process.

"How is this God's will?" Dean raged. "How is this _right?_"

Zach scoffed. "You've got some nerve lecturing me about right and wrong, Dean... considering _you_ started all this."

Dean froze. "What?"

"It is written that the first seal would be that 'a righteous man shed blood in Hell. As he breaks, so shall it break.'"

And full memory of those last horrible moments Downstairs came flooding back. "No," Dean breathed. "No, I didn't—I never said—"

"You never agreed to torture, but you _did_ shed another's blood of your own free will. It counts." And Zach left before Dean could recover enough to take a swing at him.

Just about the time shock had given way to rage, however, Cas finally showed up and clapped a hand over Dean's mouth, then held up a knife. Dean heaved a quiet sigh of relief and nodded. Cas zapped over to a wall, cut his wrist, and drew a different sigil from the one he'd drawn in the panic room.

Zach appeared behind him. "Castiel, would you mind telling me—"

Cas slammed his open palm down on the sigil, and Zach disappeared with a scream in a bright flash of light.

"He won't be gone long," Cas told Dean. "We need to go now."

"Thanks, Cas. Where the hell have you been?"

"There's no time to explain. We have to stop Sam."

"But Lilith's about to break the final seal!"

"Lilith _is_ the final seal. If she dies, the end begins."

Dean swallowed hard. "Cas... Zach said—"

"You were deceived," Cas interrupted. "As was I. I arrived seconds too late to stop you, but I saw the cloud of illusion Alastair had placed over your eyes. You bear no guilt for this. But we're running out of time. Where is Sam?"

"S-St. Mary's Convent, Ilchester, Maryland."

Cas put two fingers to Dean's forehead, and suddenly they were outside somewhere; Dean had to assume they were in Maryland. Then Cas snarled. "She's locked me out with Enochian sigils. You'll have to go—"

And they heard the shot.

Cursing, Dean kicked in the door and ran into the chapel to see Sam staring in bewildered horror as Lilith slid, glassy-eyed, to the floor in front of the altar. She wasn't sparking, like most demons did when shot with the Colt; she was bleeding profusely from the bullet wound.

"Sam!"

Sam startled. "Dean! What—where—"

"No time. _Sołtį'_, we gotta get out of here."

"Why? I just..."

"You just _broke the damn seal_, Sammy!"

Wide-eyed and breathless, Sam looked back at Lilith, whose blood was pouring out onto the floor in an unnaturally straight line. "_No_—no, that's not—"

"Cas just found out. That's what he was tryin' to tell me in that dream. Come on, let's _go_."

Lilith's blood began to run in a circle, and Sam's joints finally unlocked enough for him to let Dean pull him away to where Cas was waiting. Cas zapped them and the Impala to a safe distance, but they were still close enough to see when Lucifer burst out of the Cage with a massive bolt of white light.

Sam started crying. "I... I didn't mean to..."

"You got good company," Dean replied, not able to keep his own voice steady.

Cas squeezed their shoulders. "Neither of you is at fault here. If anything, I should bear the blame for not finding you sooner. But Zachariah would have found some way for Sam's hand to be the one to slay Lilith, even if he'd had to apply the same level of force it took to trap Dean in the deal and make him shed blood in Hell. He doesn't care that he's stooping to Lucifer's tactics to ensure an outcome that he thinks will lead to Lucifer's death."

"Why'd it have to be us, Cas? Why'd it have to be _Sam_?"

"It is said," Cas replied slowly, "that Michael's vessel and Lucifer's vessel must be brothers. And the two of you are of that bloodline, through the Chees and through the Campbells. I don't know why it was so important that you two be the ones to break the seals, though... perhaps to break your spirits enough to prompt you to accept possession."

Dean didn't say so, but he wasn't so sure it hadn't worked. He felt pretty damn broken.

"So what do we do?" Sam asked. "How do we fix _this_?"

Cas looked about ready to cry himself. "I don't know, Sam. I don't know."

Suddenly, Dean's phone rang; the number had a Sioux Falls area code, but he didn't recognize it. "Hello?"

"Dean!" came Chuck's panicked voice. "Dean, where are you?"

"We're in Maryland, but—"

"But Lucifer just busted out. I know. Bobby had to go get groceries, and he was outside when... I think it was Meg and a bunch of other demons attacked. I ran out to help, and I think the archangel chased off the demons, but Dean... Bobby's... he's hurt bad. I'm taking him to Sioux Falls General. Can... can you..."

"We've got Cas with us. We'll be there as soon as we can."

"Okay. I... I should probably go as soon as I get him to the hospital so Cas can't run into the archangel, so—give me, like, fifteen?"

"Sure. Thanks, Chuck."

"Dean, I am so sorry..."

"Dude, if Zach's been controlling your visions, there's no way you coulda known. Nothin' to be sorry about."

"Yeah. Okay. I'll... I'll be in touch, I guess."

It was a long, silent fifteen minutes between the time Dean hung up and passed on the news and the time the three of them piled into the car to let Cas zap them to Sioux Falls. They landed in the hospital parking lot and hurried in to the ER, only to be told that Bobby was still being stabilized; Cas went off to ward the hospital, and Sam and Dean had to just sit and wait. Finally, after Cas had rejoined the brothers, a doctor came out and brought them back to the examining room so that he could give them and Bobby the bad news all at once. Most of the wounds were superficial enough that they'd heal readily, but somehow one of the demons had managed to break Bobby's back. He was paralyzed from the waist down and would most likely never walk again.

When the doctor left, the humans looked expectantly at Cas. But Cas shook his head. "I can't heal you, Bobby. Something happened while I was warding this place. I've been cut off from the Host; my power is already diminishing. I'm sorry."

So there they were. Just like Amá Sání had foreseen it back in '78. Bobby was crippled; Cas was weakened; and between them, Sam and Dean had started the damned Apocalypse. The brothers exchanged a look of despair.

"What I can do," Cas continued, "is try to find God. Apparently He's on Earth right now, not in Heaven. If I can find Him, perhaps He can tell us how to set things right."

Dean sighed. "Well, if you can't, we'll just have to find some other way to make our own destiny. Hell, we know we made 'em rewrite the script at least once. We can do it again. We can fight, and we can win. We've still got the Colt—we can kill 'em all, even Lucifer, even Michael if we have to."

Bobby shook his head. "Boy, you are nine kinds of crazy."

"It's been said," Dean conceded.

But after Cas had left and Bobby convinced the brothers to go get some rest, Sam and Dean walked out to the car and just... stopped and looked at it for a moment.

"A big black horse," Sam murmured in Gaelic. "And a badger with horns."

"She said she thought I might be 30," Dean replied in kind. "She was only a year off." After a long pause, he continued, "When... at-at the end... she said you had to cut the life out of the enemy. I thought she meant Lilith. Now... hell, I don't know what she meant. And I don't know how much darker the night can get."

"I'm sorry, Dean. This is all my fault."

"No, it's not, Sam. Not like Chuck's first draft. You made the right calls with the intel we had." Dean looked him in the eye. "You're still my brother. And I still trust you."

A tear ran down Sam's cheek as he whispered, "_Ahéhee', shinaaí_."

Dean reached over and squeezed his shoulder. "_Sołtį', shitsilí._"

* * *

The fight dragged on for a year and a half. There were other hunts to take in the meantime while Cas was off trying to find God, including one which revealed that "Loki" was actually the archangel Gabriel in disguise, but the Apocalypse was still their problem. Lucifer found a temporary vessel and started stalking Sam's dreams, but he seemed content to wait for a time when he was convinced Sam would consent to possession no matter what happened in the meantime. Zach wasn't nearly so subtle or patient and did everything he could to railroad Dean. But both sides seemed flummoxed by the fact that the brothers weren't at odds. Apparently Michael and Lucifer having their Celebrity Death Match wearing brothers who were not ready to kill each other ruined the dramatic irony (or whatever—Dean never had liked analyzing literature half as much as he liked reading it, not that he'd admit even the latter in front of Thousand Books).

It wasn't like Heaven and Hell didn't try to tear Sam and Dean apart. In fact, they threw everything they had at the brothers, up to and including War. All that accomplished was the Winchesters succeeding in cutting the Horseman's ring from his hand. The angels threw a trauma-addled Anna at the family, too, which finally explained the mystery of Mr. Woodsen's death and Mary's missing memories. And it wasn't like any of the members of what Dean came to call Team Free Will were exactly the picture of emotional health. Bobby was near suicidal over the loss of his legs and the insanely cruel zombie uprising Death caused in Sioux Falls, and neither Dean nor Sam could quite get a handle on his guilt over his share in having started the Apocalypse or the losses of hunters like Jo and Ellen, who got killed in Carthage, MO, trying to help them stop Death from rising in the first place. But they had each other's backs, and Dean thought for a long time that that would be enough.

Then they went after what Cas thought was a rogue cupid but turned out to be Famine amplifying people's deepest desires to a fatal degree.

Dean knew he should have wanted nothing more than Famine's head on a plate for his role in the attack on Dinétah. Yet weirdly, he had a very hard time summoning the energy to want anything at all, even food. And Sam confessed that the first time he'd happened to be within ten feet of a demon, Azazel's blood-spell had triggered the most bizarre craving for demon blood he'd ever felt; he'd subdued it, given what Chuck had said about his first outline, but it had taken a major struggle. Knowing that Famine would probably be surrounded by demons, Sam begged Dean to restrain him and leave him behind while Dean and Cas went off to fight Famine at a diner. Dean reluctantly agreed.

He would never know for sure whether that had been the right call. What he did know was that after Famine managed to trigger a craving in Cas' vessel that allowed Cas to be distracted with a tray of raw meat, Sam showed up with his hair a flyaway mess, madness in his eyes, and blood around his mouth. Despite being clearly high as a kite, though, he held onto enough control to be able to reject Famine's offer of more demon blood, force the demons out of their hosts, and inflict enough damage on Famine that Dean could take Famine's ring.

That done, Sam looked dazedly at Dean. "Dean, I—I'm—y-you gotta take me to Bobby's, lock me up in the panic room... I... I don't..."

"_Haidzaa?_" Dean asked quietly.

"I dunno how they got in—five of 'em—held me down, dripped blood in my mouth, forced it down my throat—I... oh, gods, Dean, I drank two of 'em before I could stop myself..." Sam started crying. "And then I—I don't know how, but I killed 'em like Lucifer did in Carthage, and I ran—knew I had to stop Famine before I could do something worse... Dean, you gotta help me!"

Dean nodded miserably. "Okay. Okay. We'll get you clean. C'mon."

He bundled Sam and Cas, who was himself starting to look ill from what Famine had done to him, into the Impala and sped back to Bobby's. They arrived just as Sam was beginning to hallucinate. Dean kept vigil outside the panic room as the violent blood withdrawal tried to kill Sam, not daring to enter lest Sam accidentally lash out with his uncontrolled powers and kill him. But he knew they needed divine intervention fast if they were going to win this fight and show angels and demons both what they could do with their so-called destiny. He couldn't hold onto hope much longer. So finally, desperately, he called out to the white man's God and begged for aid.

Not even a week later, two hunters named Roy and Walt made sure they got a face-to-face meeting with the only angel in Heaven who still talked to God, who sent them back to Earth with "Back off" still ringing in Dean's ears. And Dean, at the absolute end of his rapidly fraying rope and so damn tired of being manipulated every time he turned around, knew what he had to do. Even Zach grabbing their second cousin, Adam, didn't sway him, nor did the resistance from Bobby, Cas, and Sam... until the last possible second, when he looked into his brother's eyes and found himself unable to let Sammy down.

Of course, that landed him in a hotel full of (non-native!) gods and later in a Chicago pizzeria having to look Death himself in the face, which might well have been the weirdest thing a Navajo had ever done, but hey... whoever claimed Winchesters were normal? He did at least get the satisfaction of cutting off Pestilence's ring finger with a snarled "That's for my great-grandmother," which Michael certainly wouldn't have allowed. But the trade-off, ultimately, boiled down to hearing from Gabriel and Death exactly how Amá Sání had foreseen Sam playing _Na'ídígishí_ to Dean's _Naayéé' Neizgháníi_—a plan Sam himself devised based on Gabriel's intel.

Dean hated the plan with every fiber of his being. But this was one battle he couldn't fight for Sammy. It was the only plan that both sides wouldn't see coming. There were no other options. And if the two of them really were supposed to be like the Hero Twins... Dean had to let Sam have his shot. So as much as it pained him, as impossible as it was for him to look Sam in the eye when he said it, he managed to make himself say the one English sentence that might well be the death of them both:

"I'm in."

* * *

.

* * *

Bilagáana – white person

Hodiyingo – in a holy way

shinaaí – my (older) brother

shitsilí – my (younger) brother

Na'ídígishí – He Who Cuts the Life out of the Enemy

Naayéé' Neizgháníi – Monster Slayer


	3. Epilogue

Epilogue

After the improbable conclusion of the showdown in Stull Cemetery, as Dean headed toward Cicero to keep his promise to Sam, Castiel took leave of him and headed toward the best point for finding entry into the Cage. But his flight was arrested when someone grabbed him by the edge of one wing.

"Where do you think _you're_ going, kiddo?"

Castiel gasped and spun. "Gabriel! I... we thought... the hotel..."

Gabriel shrugged. "Yeah, well. It's a long story. Where you headed?"

"I was going to retrieve Sam."

"Alone?!"

"But I can't just..."

Gabriel held up a hand. "I get it. I don't like it, either. But neither one of us has the juice to get him out in one piece, not right now. We don't have backup from the Host. And you know what Dean will say if we don't manage to get all of him on the first try. So, since this was my bad idea, I'll be the one to call in a few favors."

"From whom are you owed such favors?"

"Castiel..."

"Can it be done quickly?"

Gabriel put a hand on Castiel's shoulder. "We won't leave him down there a minute longer than we have to, brother. I promise. We owe them that."

Castiel sighed. "What should I do, then?"

"Keep an eye on Heaven, and keep an eye on Dean. Leave the rest to me."

"Will you come back to us?"

"When I can."

Castiel nodded. "All right, then." And he left.

Gabriel sighed and watched him fly off. Once Castiel was out of angelic earshot, Gabriel called, "Kali?"

Kali appeared next to him. "You handled him well."

"How much did you hear?"

"Enough. How much did you mean?"

He studied her face for a moment and sighed again. "I need to talk to your dad, toots."


End file.
